A data entry error resulted in the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) listing only one of the three companies in a consortium that bid to audit Guyana’s cost oil and the agency’s website has since made a correction to reflect all the companies involved.
Following concerns raised by a consortium of local accounting and auditing firms that NPTAB’s files only showed only one firm listed as submitting the tender, an executive of the agency explained to Stabroek News that it was a minor glitch in the logging entry.
When checked yesterday, NPTAB’s website did indeed reflect the change in name from Eclisar to RHVE Consortium.
This newspaper reported on Sunday that according to NPTAB, only one company – Eclisar – had submitted a tender to audit Guyana’s cost oil. No sooner than the article was published, the consortium expressed concern saying that Eclisar was one of three companies in the RHVE consortium that had bid.
“A consortium of firms submitted [a tender] but we see it reported and stated on the website of NPTAB as only one company,” a representative of the consortium had told this newspaper.
The consortium had originally consisted of the firms: Ram and McRae, Haynes and Ramdihal, Vitality Consulting, and Eclisar Financial & Professional Services (EFP).
It is now only Ramdihal and Haynes, Vitality Consulting, and Eclisar Financial & Professional Services (EFP).
Ram and McRae Managing Partner, Christopher Ram, told this newspaper yesterday that the firm is no longer a part of the consortium.
When the tenders for the Ministry of Natural Resources project – consultancy services for cost recovery audit validation of the Government of Guyana’s profit oil share – were opened last Tuesday, it was stated that only EFP had submitted a tender, according to NPTAB records.
That bid was pegged at $340.7 million.
The contract to audit the US$460 million pre-contract costs had been awarded to the United Kingdom firm IHS Markit and it had cost Guyana US$300,000.
RHVE said that it responded to a request for proposals for the project and when it submitted its tender document the cover letter had all of the companies listed.
On the matter of cost recovery auditing from 2017 to 2020, Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat, had stated during the 2022 Budget debate and in a written response that monies for this project had been appropriated this year to the tune of some US$250,000 ($52 million).
In November last year, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had announced that ExxonMobil’s post-2017 expenditure for the Liza-1 and Liza-2 wells would not be audited as government was not able to select a strong local group to undertake it. This statement was at odds with the fact that the government had advertised last year for foreign firms.
The comments resulted in a string of criticisms from the public with many emphasising the need for the sums to be professionally scrutinised. It was compounded by the fact that it was over one year since the audit of the US$460 million. That report is yet to be seen.
Noted too was that the statutory two-year period for the 2017-2019 auditing had expired and there was a concern that the company might object to its books being audited after the contracted time had elapsed.
But government has stressed that the auditing of the over US$9 billion sum can still be undertaken and as such there is no need to request an extension from ExxonMobil. Former APNU+AFC minister, David Patterson, had questioned if the Ministry of Natural Resources or any other agency with oversight of the oil & gas sector had approached ExxonMobil for an extension of the deadline for auditing the expenses.
The Minister of Natural Resources had offered assurances. “We have a commitment from Exxon. There is no such [objection], they are not against us doing it [later].”
ExxonMobil has told this newspaper that it is confident of its bookkeeping matters and transparency of the company. It added that it has never shied away from audit requests and that it submits periodic reports on its spending to a number of government agencies here.
“ExxonMobil Guyana considers audits a normal part of our operations and cooperates with the government so it can fulfill its obligations. We are fully transparent with the Government on our budgets and cost banks for each block and have implemented extensive cost controls across our business in line with our contracts and the laws of the country,” ExxonMobil spokesperson Janelle Persaud had said in response to questions from Stabroek News.
